(Julie Kedzie steals the show at the EliteXC: Destiny weigh-ins, while some creepy chick named Gina lurks in the background. / Photo via George Ruiz)

What the hell, guys…it’s like the UFC is actually assembling a real women’s bantamweight division, with contenders and prospects and even gatekeepers. Color us impressed. The UFC’s latest female fight-booking is veteran Jackson’s MMA product Julie Kedzie vs. Dutch kickboxer Germaine “The Iron Lady” de Randamie, both of whom spent time in Strikeforce before that organization’s collapse. As first revealed by FOX Sports, the two fighters will meet at UFC on FOX 8, July 27th in Seattle.

A decorated practitioner of the “Fuck This” fighting style (seriously), Kedzie has unfortunately lost her last two contests against Miesha Tate and Alexis Davis, which dropped her career record to 16-11. Since then, she’s kept busy as a member of the Invicta FC broadcast team, and according to Wikipedia, Kedzie is also Greg Jackson’s personal assistant.*

(Well, at least she has looking hot in front of a camera as a fallback career.) 

Although the main card of Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman card provided most of the evening’s highlights, you would be hard pressed to find an MMA site that didn’t declare Miesha Tate’s come-from-behind win (insert puns now) over Julie Kedzie to be the most exciting fight of the evening. Despite being rocked on various occasions and almost ending up as the first entry in the head-kick-nip-slip Hall of Fame, Tate was able to brave the storm and score an armbar victory of her own late in the third round.

But up until that point, it was plain to see that there was clearly something a little off about the former title holder. Her combinations came few and far between, and her takedown attempts seemed to be lacking a certain gusto that they had previously held. While part of this could be attributed to the toughness of Kedzie, who has been training at Greg Jackson’s gym for some time now (and is in fact his personal assistant), an equal amount could just as easily be blamed on Tate’s somewhat lackadaisical attitude in the cage on Saturday night.

The fact that she still managed to pull off an amazing, gritty win over a tough opponent despite this only shows what caliber of fighter Tate truly is, but according to the source herself, we might not be seeing “Cupcake” in action for a while. In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani during The MMA Hour, Tate explained that she simply “didn’t feel the passion and fire that [she] had felt in her previous fights” when facing Kedzie:

I felt out of my element, I didn’t feel normal in there whatsoever. It was very strange, it was not a feeling I enjoyed and not something I want to experience again, I don’t really know what my next step is here. Even when I was when lined up with Julie, across the cage, I was like, ‘Is this really happening right now? Am I really here? Am I really in this fight?’ I felt like I was kind of just in this twilight zone. I did not like that. It’s not how I normally feel, not how emotions really run. Normally I’m excited to be there, I’m amped and pumped, and I felt little to nothing, and I mean, she literally elbowed me and got my lip really good and I was like ‘ehh, whatever.’ She kicked me in the face, ‘ehh, whatever,’ It was not, it wasn’t a normal circumstance for me I don’t know why that is but I’m asking myself a lot of questions. I think I need to take a step back, relax a minute, and evaluate it. 

More from this interview is after the jump.

(Is there anything that Nick Newell can’t do? NO EYE CONTACT! Props: TheRealClayHenry via Karmaatemycat)

- Kedzie Overcame Eating Disorder to Become Women’s MMA Contender (SI.com)

- Javier Mendez Says “The Team Got Stronger After Koscheck Left” (Fightline)

- Why Chael Sonnen At Light Heavyweight is Great for MMA (HeavyMMA)

- Sarah Kaufman Training Camp Journal [VIDEO] (MMAFighting)

- The Rock and Gina Carano on the Set of ‘Fast 6′ (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- GSP: “I Didn’t Have the Drive Anymore, I Lost a Little Bit of Love for MMA” (BleacherReport/MMA)

- Celebrities With Front Butts [GALLERY] (WorldWideInterweb)

- Bryce Harper Tells Kids to ‘Be as Sexy as You Can’ (TerezOwens)

- Amazing Photos of Lightning Storms Over 25 Cities (EgoTV)

- Official Trailer for ‘Ghost Tits,’ Starring Olivia Munn (TurdFergusonBlog)

- How To Break Up With Class (I.E. Not Discuss What An Emotional Vampire Your Ex Was) (MadeMan)

- Can Long-Distance Travel Make You Sick? (MensFitness)

- The Six Saddest Places Penises Have Had to Be Freed From (HolyTaco)

(No, this is not the ‘All Access’ video, but rather a behind-the-scenes video of her ESPN ‘The Body’ shoot. Go ahead and complain. I DARE YOU.)

“Everything you need in a fighter, she has, yet she’s a woman and she’s beautiful. The Ronda Rousey package is different than any other package we’ve ever seen.”

So says UFC President Dana White as he leads us into Showtime’s “All Access” look at the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion, Olympic Judo bronze medalist, and occasional TMZ host Ronda Rousey, who in just over two years has managed to almost effortlessly ascend to the sport’s highest level. And it’s hard to deny that “Rowdy” is an athlete unlike many, if not all of her counterparts — a hot female Jon Jones if you will — whose “kill or be killed” outlook on life (and aforementioned looks) has led her to achieve massive success in easily the most overlooked facet of MMA. We’re talking of course, about the ladies.

Detailing everything from Rousey’s heated title-earning feud with Meisha Tate (Spoiler: It ended like all of Rousey’s fights do) to her (gulp) nude shoot for ESPN’s The Body issue to her preparation for her upcoming title defense against Sarah Kaufman, “All Access” truly lives up to it’s name. Showtime takes us inside the champion’s house, which looks like an average episode of Hoarders, and snags interviews with everyone from Gina Carano, who Ronda admits convinced her to drop trau for ESPN in the first place (as if we needed to thank Gina for anything else) to former HooknShoot Grand Prix winner Julie Kedzie.

So check out the full video after the jump, and let us know what you think.

(It may not be the most conventional fight attire, but we’ll give Miesha a ton of fap style points for the effort.) 

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a few short months since Miesha Tate nearly had her arm torn in two by Ronda Rousey in the their bantamweight championship showdown on March 3rd. It was undoubtedly one of the most heated (not to mention hyped) fights in WMMA history, and did not disappoint once the caged door closed. As it turns out, despite the fact that Meisha ended up coming short and losing her belt in the process, the fight didn’t even come close to squashing the beef between her and Rousey. How appropriate then, that it was recently announced that the former champ has been booked to take on Julie Kedzie at the same event that Rousey will attempt to defend her belt for the first time against Sarah Kaufman.

Is this just an attempt by Strikeforce to pack as many exciting fights as possible into their ever-decreasing number of cards, or rather an elaborate ploy to set up another post fight brawl that will in turn hype the inevitable rematch between Rousey and Tate?

No way I’m not using this picture again.

What up, Potato Nation, it’s your boy ReX13 here at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City, ready to watch some ladies fight. I realize some of you have dirty-ass opinions about women’s MMA, and to you assholes I say this: I think there’s an NBA game on or something. Is the NFL draft still on? How’d my Carolina Panthers do? Actually, don’t answer that, just exit stage left. For the rest of you, let’s party: we got a badass card to watch.

Since the whole thing is streaming for free right here, I’m going to forego an actual play-by-play and just drop observations as the night goes on. I’m also ready to grab snapshots and video of the things you can’t see, so expect butt shots of Natasha Wicks. I’m all for girl power, but I also know what my Nation likes.

One more note: they are trying to disable the media with a light show and deafening dubstep. Pray for me.

Come on in, the show starts at 8pm ET. Until then, feel free to tweet your best #BadPickUpLinesAtInvictaFC at me, because I’m immature.

 I don’t know how you have a staredown with a French accent, but I’m pretty sure Romy Ruyssen (right) is doing it.

So let’s get this out of the way:  I live in Kansas.

No, I don’t know what the hell a jayhawk is.  I’m not actually from here.

Anyways, Invicta Fighting Championships is going down just a short drive away in Kansas City, so I was quick to accept when I was offered a chance to be a member of the fight media for the inaugural Invicta FC card.

There were a few hiccups at the weigh-ins:  for some reason, they did not set up a raised platform for me to set up upon. As a result my pictures and video were of decidedly low quality. (As a recompense, please enjoy a few pictures courtesy of Invicta’s own photographer, Esther Lin.)

(Julie Kedzie: There’s nothing better than losing that last 10…)

According to press release sent out today by EliteXC, that Miami event featuring Kimbo Slice vs. Tank Abbott won’t be the first show that Elite puts on in 2008. “ShoXC: EliteXC Challenger Series” is scheduled to go down on January 25th in Atlantic City and will feature the following matches:

TELEVISED CARD
Paul “Semtex” Daley vs. TBA (160 lbs.)
Yves Edwards vs. Kyle Bradley (160 lbs.)
Bobby McMaster vs. Bao Quach (150 lbs.)
Kala Kolohe Hose vs. Bellaton Frederic (185 lbs.)
Julie Kedzie vs. Tonya Evinger (140 lbs.)

PRELIMINARY MATCHES
Eddie Alvarez vs. Carlos Quinlon (160 lbs.)
Zach Makovsky vs. Wilson Reis (140 lbs.)
Binky Jones vs. TBA (150 lbs.)
Sergio Vinagre vs. Doug Gordon (170 lbs.)
Joe Shilling vs. Matt Makowski (170 lbs.)

The event will be broadcast on Showtime at 11 p.m. ET/PT, and tickets are available here. At this point, we’re really only interested in the Kedzie/Evinger fight, which would establish a clear successor to Gina Carano, should she decide to leave the fighting life and pursue other opportunities full-time; both women lost to Carano in 2007.